


She's Just My Cut and Fancy

by cherry_knots



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Disregards post-3x06 canon, F/M, Mostly the soft and tender friendship that Anne and Gilbert have always deserved, Pure and wholesome fluff to alleviate the angst and suffering we shared in 3x06, Suggestion of UST, Winifred Rose is briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 01:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherry_knots/pseuds/cherry_knots
Summary: Anne finds Gilbert outside Green Gables one late night, intoxicated and miserable after a party with the Barry and Rose families.





	She's Just My Cut and Fancy

The hours of the night quietly ticked by, and the full moon hung like a pale white platter in the star-spangled darkness with its beam illuminating every glass surface in Avonlea, including a little window in a gable behind which a young redheaded girl, not quite a lady, rested in her bed. Of all things, Anne dreamt she was a moon ray, silver and speckled with floating dust, dancing with the high-pitched whistling of the chilly evening air and silently tapping on the windows of the slumbering people inside. She imagined weaving herself through and between the crowning bare branches of the trees that shed their red and gold leaves. However her dream, in which life as a moon ray was blissfully and joyously simple, was short-lived, interrupted by a distant thud echoing from outside her window. To her dismay, she was suddenly returned to the coldness and monotony of reality.

Her feet carried her worn and weary self out of her bed and towards the window, pulling apart the lace curtains just in time to observe a young man dressed in his finest Sunday wear leaning against the front gate. At first she feared that he might be an intruder intending to cause harm or devastation to their home, but as soon as his cap fell off to reveal a head full of dark curls, she rolled her eyes and saw it was only Gilbert. He must have just returned from that party, the one being hosted by the Barrys that night and among the guests the Roses and their daughter Winifred. Anne had called it a party; Gilbert had called it an ‘official business junction’. And everybody thought she was the pretentious one for using such flowery prose in her everyday speech!

Since not even Diana was allowed to be in their company, she assumed that they served all sorts of grown-up delicacies and drinks there, seeing as he was practically an adult. A brief but acute sting of jealousy struck her swiftly, as she also wondered how many other women with as much beauty, worldliness and graceful maturity as Winifred might have also attended. Not wanting to wake the others, she crept out of her bedroom and down the stairs, retrieving a cardigan and a lit gas lantern on the way out the front door. She stumbled out onto the bare scarlet pasture and met him at the gate. “Gilbert,” she hissed at him, “you’re at the wrong house. Go home.”

He pivoted his gaze, which was as unsteady as the rest of his body, to meet hers. His eyes were hazy and unfocused; his face extremely pale save for the grey circles that colored his eyelids. “I can’t,” he answered in a strange, garbled manner; his voice was cracking, almost whispering. “I can’t right now.” His legs were trembling, and he was leaning vicariously upon the structure of the gate for support.

It didn’t take long for Anne to realise what had happened: he was terribly and hopelessly drunk. “Oh, God,” she groaned, clapping a hand over her mouth. “How did you get all the way here?”

“I ran,” he simply replied. “I have legs, can’t you see them?”

“Well, as far I can tell, you don’t have much of a brain at the moment. Come, I’ll take you inside and get you warm.” She unlocked the gate and gingerly pushed it open, before hastily pulling Gilbert towards her and hooking his arm around her shoulder so that he didn’t come crashing down onto the ground. He grinned widely at her as they trudged together up the hill. “You’re my queen, Anne.”

“I think you mean your drudge,” Anne quipped flatly, but couldn’t fight a smile in return.

Inside, the fireplace crackled and emitted a soft, dim glow that stretched towards all corners of the living room. He was curled up there, wrapped up in a thick knitted wool blanket that Anne had thrown over him at the last minute, before heading towards the kitchen to fix him a cup of hot chocolate. She later arrived with the hot chocolate on a wooden tray, setting it beside him and noticing he not only looked completely out of it, but also downcast and slightly troubled. At first she wondered if he’d acquired a throbbing headache from however many drinks he’d had at the party, before realising that the sensible, pragmatic Gilbert she knew would never drink so excessively, least of all at a social gathering with one or two well-connected families present. There must have been some sort of extreme emotion that had undercut his rationality and provoked him to make such an impetuous and foolish decision.

Anne couldn’t think of what to ask him lest she inadvertently offend or hurt his feelings – something that seemed to happen with her an awful lot, far more than she liked. She was therefore spared when Gilbert, staring mindlessly past the brick wall of the fireplace, blurted out, “I’m such an idiot, Anne.”

Her body gravitated tentatively closer towards him. “I didn’t think this needed to be said to one of Miss Stacy’s best students, but you’re not an idiot. Everybody loses sight now and again.”

“I should have realised that she wasn’t as serious about us as I was,” he continued, pulling the blanket tighter around him. “She lives in a bigger pond. More fish, more opportunities, more _suitors_. She seemed to enjoy the company of the other men that were there.”

Anne sighed heavily and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “She’s a woman, Gilbert, not a nun. That doesn’t mean she values her friendship with you any less. I’m sure she didn’t mean to cut you off like that.” _Now you know how I feel_, she thought to herself, but knew it would be unnecessarily spiteful to say so out loud. She felt guilty for even thinking it. He was her friend. She shouldn’t despise her friend for liking other girls – women, for that matter.

“She didn’t just talk to them, you know,” said Gilbert, drinking from the mug and wincing as he did so, “And at this point in time I don’t think I’m an option anymore. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if I ever _was_ an option to begin with. She’s such a pretty and easy woman to be with, I wouldn’t be surprised if a dozen other men ended up falling at her feet.”

“You’re one to talk. Every lady on Prince Edward Island would die to be your wife. Believe me, I know.” It was then that Anne realised what she had uttered and a rosy blush permeated her cheeks; but Gilbert had already glanced up at her with a knowing smirk, which vanished as he answered seriously:

“What if I don’t want every lady on Prince Edward Island? Maybe I’m just content with one whom I genuinely care about.”

A numbing chill travelled down her spine as she remembered what she said to the fortune teller on the day of the town fair. _I would have settled with just one._ She bit her lip. “Well, if not Winifred, then I’m nothing short of certain that you’ll find that one special fish in the pond. Whoever she ends up being.”

He smiled sadly. “Yeah.” They held their gazes for a full minute, shy and bewildered and intense all at once. Anne didn’t quite know how to react towards being stared at for that long. Then Gilbert abruptly asked her, “Say, has anybody told you how beautiful you really are?”

Anne froze at the forwardness of his question, before her lips turned downward. “Still a little inebriated, I see.”

He pursed his lips comically and wiggled his eyebrows. “No, really. You’re like…” He snapped his fingers repeatedly, searching for the right words. “An angel…on fire. An angel on fire.”

Anne looked away, both thoroughly exasperated and, dare she say, amused. “Thank you. I’m flattered. Honestly. Look, why don’t you get some rest? I doubt I’ll be able to drag you all the way home, nor do I wish to.” She went to sit cross-legged next to him, and without warning he rested his head – his soft, fluffy head – against the smooth curve of her neck and shoulder. Anne felt her skin grow very warm and tender from the intimacy of this gesture, never mind the fact that Gilbert was still slightly drunk. Nonetheless she smiled and brought a hand to his back in order to support his full weight.

His eyes, glimmering with the full extent of its gorgeous hazel hue from the nearby light of the fire, suddenly flickered up to her. “Can you sing to me, Anne?” he said groggily, attempting to hold in a throaty yawn. When Anne stared incredulously at him, he added, “Heard you sing to Delly a lot. You’ve got a lovely voice.”

She shook her head, sounding a little annoyed. “No, I’m not going to sing for you.” After seeing the pathetic, pleading look on his face, Anne let out another sigh, and figured she might as well. She began softly, with a slightly uncertain but pleasant lilt, “_When I was a little boy, and so my mother told me, way, haul away, we’ll haul away Joe…_” When she faltered momentarily, Gilbert gave a sleepy half-nod, indicating for her to keep going. She pressed on. “_And if I did not kiss the girls, my lips would grow all moldy. Way, haul away, we’ll haul away Joe…_”

She continued to sing for a while, and found that she rather enjoyed it; throughout she stroked his curls carefully like a mother would her child, and her lips hovered close behind his head. His warm breath gushed and vibrated against her neck. In that moment everything was forgotten; the party, the pains and hardships of the day, even Winifred had drifted ceremoniously out of their thoughts. They were now enraptured in a bubble of profound, heavenly bliss, untouchable and impregnable. By the time she’d reached the lyric, “_Way, haul away, she’s just my cut and fancy_”, Gilbert had well and truly fallen asleep, still propped up against her. The last thing he’d seen before blacking out had been those seraphic, flaming tresses tumbling down her shoulders.

For all the times she’d seen him in school and either at her home or at his, she’d never seen a sleeping Gilbert before, and it fascinated her. He looked so small and darling and vulnerable in her lap; he was no longer an aspiring candidate for a prestigious medical college in France or a fumbling suitor vying for a self-assured woman’s affections or even a man, but a little boy of days gone by, those simultaneously rich and uncomplicated days when his father was still alive and he had no responsibility over anyone except himself. In turn, she herself felt safe and wanted and almost, if she dared to think it, a little loved. This was a different kind of warmth and tenderness she sensed with Marilla and Matthew, and a different sort of delight and thrill she shared with all of her girlfriends. She didn’t know yet what to call it.

Whatever it was, she only wished that the night would drag on forever and ever.


End file.
